Ryanair Becomes Europe’s Biggest Airline in Passenger Numbers

Ryanair is now Europe’s biggest airline. the Irish low-cost carrier flew 152.4 million people in 2019, 9% more than the previous year, and achieved an occupancy rate of 96%. This makes the air carrier the biggest by far in terms of passengers carried.

The news from Ryanair tells of the carrier ferrying 11.2 million passengers in December, which was an increase of 9%. Ryanair could therefore be dethroning Lufthansa Group, the parent company of Brussels Airlines.

The German airline only recorded a 2.5% increase in passengers between January and November, losing its leading status to the Irish carrier.

As for 2020, the new season promises to be more complicated for Ryanair. The results will suffer because of the issues with the Boeing 737 MAX planes, dozens of which the company had ordered, and the forecasted number of passengers have already been revised several times to decrease.

In other Ryanair news, the airline released its November CO2 emissions statistics, which show an ave. of 67g CO2 per passenger/km. In addition, the company announced that 93% of flights in November arrived on time.